The past four years have been a monster fraud that the public has cheerfully accepted, and for those of us on the other side – – waiting, rapture-style, for the fall – – it has been tempting to latch on to whatever big news might appear that, once and for all, would finally turn this market around and send it spiraling into the bowels of hell.
But I realized something a few days ago; in spite of a steady stream of Big News (particularly, on a regular basis, from our friends at ZH), not a single one of these things has mattered. Month in and month out, from the middle of 2009 on forward, there have been all kinds of glorious events that seemed like they might usher in the tumble. And each time, there is breathless commentary and excited palpitations about how huge the drop is going to be on Sunday when the market re-opens. But the big news, at best, matters for a few hours.
I haven’t even thought hard about these, and they certainly aren’t in any kind of order, but some examples include:
- The Debt Ceiling – Remember this one? This was the cute notion that the country had to curtail its spending. In late summer of 2011, this actually got some traction, but Boehner – – as he always does – – caved in to Obama, and the guy hasn’t had a backbone since. The debt ceiling has become a joke, and it just gets bumped up every time it becomes an issue. Pathetic.
- The Sequester – Here is an adjunct issue – – we were all supposed to be worried about the minuscule cuts that were going to take place in government (I personally think a 100% cut sounds about right, but that’s just me). It hasn’t meant dick.
- Portugal, Italy, Greece, Spain – The PIGS, remember? Their economies suck whale right now. It hasn’t mattered.
- North Korean Missiles – Oh, Kim Jung-Un, you chubby, sadistic, lunatic! You and your penile avatars have struck terror into the hearts of fish around your land, haven’t they? Tubby and his money shots haven’t mattered.
- Bad Economic Data – Taken a look at the spread between macroeconomic data and the stock market lately? It’s growing as wide as Roseanne Barr’s backside.
- $17,000,000,000,000 in unpayable debt – The United States debt has reached a level where it has become simply meaningless, sort of like Japan’s. It’s just a Really Big Number that’ll just keep getting bigger forever.
- Plunging Civilian Employment – All this talk about improving employment is a lie. The number of people actually working has been steadily declining for years. The counting tricks at the Department of Labor don’t reflect reality. But that hasn’t mattered to the stock market either.
